Sender	Sabrina Schreiber	Back to Inbox
Subject	Ultimate cultural experience

Dear excursionists,

I had to think a little while about my Liverpool highlight because I experienced a lot of amazing things and met great people during our stay there. But then a very special memory came to my mind, a highlight that did not only bring me closer to the English culture but also strengthened my appreciation for a friendship with a very dear person.

There was one thing that I really wanted to do when I thought about going to Liverpool, actually a very stereotypical experience which does not exactly emphasize my true interest in getting to know a culture. However, isn’t it always the small things which make life so worthwhile, especially when it comes to cultural differences? So I decided – after always omitting that particular highlight during my previous visits to England – to finally get a taste of a true English cliché and to get past my fear of stepping into a nasty-looking fish and chips stall and ordering one of their national meals. As I had also developed a craving for salt and vinegar crisps, I thought that fish and chips refined with my favorite spices could not taste that bad.

Fortunately, I was able to persuade Clara to join me on my little cultural experiment and so we chose the last full day we had in Liverpool to spend some of our last British pounds on deep-fried fish and potatoes wrapped in three layers of thin gray paper which, due to its habit of clinging to the greasy food, later also found its way into my mouth. I guess the weather god wanted to provide Clara and me with the full English experience and so we walked from Carnatic House to the nearest chip shop through heavy rain and wind, huddled together under an umbrella which did not seem to be made for these wet and uncomfortable circumstances. After unceremoniously stepping into the not exactly inviting-looking chip shop and ordering our fish and chips, we were asked by the truly nice guy behind the counter where we came from. While talking a little about our home country and listening to him assuring us that we definitely chose the best location for trying our first fish and chips meal in the whole city of Liverpool, we watched him shoveling a huge amount of shiny chips on the grey paper, salting them and adding a gigantic deep-fried piece of fish. “Vinegar?” he asked with a mischievous smile and poured a colorless fluid on the food. Then he folded the paper in order to make it easier for us to carry the humongous portion, gave us two small blue plastic forks and some napkins and handed us our ultimate cultural experience.

Not without looking at each other with glances of irritation, we found ourselves standing outside the shop in heavy rain cradling two heavy bags in our arms. Since there was no possibility to eat in the shop and since we did not want our food to be cold, Clara and I decided to eat the fish and chips at one of the lighted bus stops nearby. And there it was, my Liverpool highlight: Standing with one of my best friends at a Liverpool bus stop with a tasty advertisement for KFC, holding in our arms the world’s greasiest fast food, eating the grey paper because I couldn’t distinguish the ingredients of the mass I hugged, and watching the rain pour down the typical semi-terraced houses on a dark Tuesday evening. I would not have traded that half an hour for anything, because we had so much fun eating fish and chips with almost wet hair, talking about the things we had seen and done so far in Liverpool and deciding that fish and chips would not be so bad if they changed the oil more often and bought better vinegar. For me, this was my highlight, for it stresses one true thing that I have learned over the years: It does not matter what you do, but who you do something with. And Clara definitely made my Liverpool fish and chips experience unforgettable.

Sabrina Schreiber